Whenever friends come to stay in my rural valley it is often the simplest of pleasures that fill them with glee. An international banker once visited and spent hours pacing about the orchards, returning – with the excitement of a small boy – to the kitchen clutching a trug brimming with discarded lemons. To his chagrin I gently explained that the majority of those that fell to the earth were rotten inside hence why we didn’t use them. And then there was the svelte London fashion designer that fell in love with home produced Majorcan crisps and salted almonds and whom we found stowing away countless packets in her suitcase. Other friends have delighted in the local fiestas, their eyes on stalks during the Moors and Christians mock battle that takes place in Soller in May or the wild antics of the devils at the Night of Fire in August.